Settling in to a new future

It's taken me four months (somebody please slow down that ticking thing!!) to find the space in my head to write about the three weeks between leaving the house at La Ville Oger and moving in to Melody in Pors Peron. There have been huge changes in our lives in the past 18 months and I've had to process it all so that I can move on. Next lifetime I'm going to be a man who doesn't have this urge to purge and grow!

You see ... even Alan and Bridie are ahead of me on this pathway .... ha ha ha

On the beach at St Gilda's

At the beginning of 2016 we discovered that we were too burned out, after nearly 10 years, to continue as responsible carers for my then 92 year old Mum and her rapidly progessing Altzheimers. I ended up in hospital in the UK with a rather life-threatening bout of pneumonia, and the pressure on Alan, looking after both of us (once I had driven a rather scary drive back home to France, by myself) for a couple of months, was huge.

I could see the strain on his usually laughing and affable face and every time I looked in a mirror all I could see was this puffy, tired, black-eyed ghost which I vaguely remembered was me. Both of us felt our nerves were at screaming pitch and we couldn't cope with my siblings who, quite rightly (one in South Africa and one in the UK) could not yet fully relate to what we were going through. Plus there was no possibility of any sort of break for us, from any quarter, for a few years.

To cut a long and traumatic story short, I took my Mum over to my sister in the UK, in October, to stay there temporarily whilst I try and find a suitable nursing home for her there. As it turns out, it's a really long process so Mum is still living with my sister for the duration. She turns 94 just after next Christmas ... Mum, that is, not my sister! ... and is unlikely to be coming back to France to live with us.

Back in France, I didn't realise how long it would take to get back on track with my own life. The Big Sellout of all our goods and chattels, followed by our move here to Pors Peron didn't help much either. That too was quite a draining experience even although it's exactly what we wanted to do.

The biggest hurdle in this challenge has been regaining my sense of identity. Altzheimers is a cruel monster and as much as my sensible brain told me not to take on board the unfamiliar and harsh words which came out of Mum's mouth on an almost daily basis, it certainly wears you down. I've needed to find the essense of myself again. As has Alan. It's not so easy!

Good long hours doing glass painting commissions these past few weeks, once all the unpacking had been done, has given me that inside space to balance out, so right now I'm probably the most whole I've been for a couple of decades. Watch out world!

From life's journey it's back to our road travels.

Here's a little reminder of Lanouee

After leaving Lanouee (see: https://roadtripswithmilly.blogspot.fr/2017/06/the-leaving-of-la-ville-oger.html) and before we could head south towards the coast of Vannes, I needed to have a carcinoma removed from just below my right eye, in the Pontivy Hospital, which meant staying in the area for a few more days. Thank you South African sun!

Our next overnight stop, hardly half an hour down the road, and heading towards Pontivy, was at Pleugriffet. This aire fast became my favourite for the area. Traffic-wise it's quiet, next to a lake and we were the only motorhomers there. The local community take care of the area, having erected sculptures from natural materials and plants. There's even a couple of boxes where simple vegetables are being grown and I noticed a family picking a handful to take home and use.

 

We were still experimenting with keeping Bridie on a lead next to the motorhome, attached to the seat belt connection inside, seeing how long we could allow it to be without her being able to scare the wits out of passersby or getting herself too tangled and knotted up.

Herself, not being used to restrictions when there were so many lovely sniffs to be had further than the length of her lead, got a little miffed and didn't want to look at me while I was taking pics. She's such a teenager!

My facial op went off well but my mind being elsewhere, I forgot to take pics of our stop at the Pontivy aire. Valvert. It's a popular spot for motorhomes as well as walkers and families, with a lunchtime restaurant there as well. Next time then, when I don't have a big plaster and dressing on my face!

Heading south ....

A Journey of a Different Kind

I've been battling to find the time to write about the last couple of weeks on the road, before we began to settle in to Melody, our brand new leisure home in Pors Peron on the coast of Finistere. And we've been here just short of three months now!

In the meantime, I read a blog written by Martine Cotter, which influenced my thinking hugely - hence this blog title of A Journey of a Different Kind. I've put the link to Martine's blog at the end of this post and I would encourage you to read right through to the end.

Reading Martine's Travelling Family Blog, in all it's raw vulnerability, I realised it's not that I was battling to find the time to write, it's that I haven't been writing truthfully. In fact, I haven't been living truthfully. I've been doing what I've been doing ever since I left South Africa sixteen years ago. Hiding who I truly am and trying to fit my square self into a round hole. I can see my reflection now in how and what I have written since I landed in Ireland, and in our subsequent years in France.

I wrote quite a lot whilst in Ireland ... about one hundred-and-thirty artist profiles, over six years, for a national magazine; I published a book entitled "Tea 'n Turps" using twelve of those profiles; an artist self-help book "The eArt Directory"; and loads of articles for interior decorating and general magazines in Ireland. Even then, I was writing as I heard English being spoken, in the Irish vernacular, still hiding my own identity.

It's just a fact of history and geography that southern hemisphere folk and northern hemisphere folk are different animals in so many ways. The ingredients of these northern and southern cultural recipes - distance, weather, geography, history and a myriad of cultural influences, all play their part and flavour our blood with different herbs and spices.

Right now I need to be the straight-talking South African that I am. The one who has felt quite lonely in so many ways for the past sixteen years. I need to acknowledge who I am as an individual, because that too has influenced how I've handled the cultural differences I have willingly faced.

Maybe then I'll find both my writing and my painting mojos again.

The blue print I was born with, my early years and upbringing, my (horrid) school years, my parents and sisters, and the social skills I learned (or didn't learn!) along the way, shaped my adult self and formed the mask I have which meets the world. Just like everyone else on earth. So I'm far from perfect.

I love Ireland just as much as I love South Africa, but of course it's different. A mother loves all her children to distraction ... but it's a slightly different love for each one, not more or less, but because they are very different individuals.

Both Alan and I feel so at home in Ireland ... but we were very lonely there. As is the way in South Africa, we're used to inviting folk around for dinner, and receiving return invitations back to friends homes. There would be at least weekly return invitations to each others homes back where we lived.

However, although we got to know many people in Ireland, and invited them around, in the fourteen years we lived there we can count on one hand only, literally, the folk who invited us back to their homes for a meal or social event. Perhaps it's because the Irish have huge families and large circles of friends they went to school with, and that takes up all their social energy. Or perhaps it's because I'm rather shy, not such a great small-talker, albeit a straight-talker when I do talk, who is also a bit of a hermit - and I got worse as time went on and I lost my social confidence. However, Alan is very affable, full of life stories and "hail fellow well met" bonhomie which generally balances out my social inadequacies.

Nevertheless, lack of social life excluded, I have some very precious Irish artist friends with whom I get together, usually in a pub or cafe, each time I go back. I hope they know how precious they are to me. They are the gems I found in those Connemara years and I love them dearly.

I have battled creatively too, trying to immerse myself in a different country with a different culture, different colours, different smells, different skies, and vastly different subjects. No-one was interested in my Africa-ness; in my paintings of leopards, lions, rhinocerus and elephant all executed in the warm colours of the country of my roots. I think that's when I began to try and hide where I come from. I felt I had to try and fit in, try and be one of the crowd ... and artistically, that haunts what I do to this day.

This is what I used to do:

And this is what I've tried to change to:

I ended up painting abstract horses and floral arrangements!! (See my website https://lyndacookson.blogspot.fr/)

We moved to France three years ago and our social life picked up dramatically. We got to know many of the English folk who pop back and forth between the UK and Brittany, and have formed some good friendships with some lovely folk. But you know what? I still feel different! Ugh!

What made me realise that it may be a northern and southern hemisphere thing, is that the person I feel most relaxed with, is another crazy artist who is Australian and lives much of the time in Brittany. I don't seem to be able to analyse it deeper than that, except that I know that she will always forgive me for my little inadequacies. Even if she judges me in the moment, that judgment passes soon and I will always be welcomed back into another good aul' swaying, nothing held back, southern hug each time we meet. She too tells me that she feels different and feels folk cannot relate to who she really is. We have so much more to give with nobody who understands what it is we have to give! Not their problem really. It's our problem LOL.

Whilst all this different country and different culture stuff was going on I was also, initially, battling with a step-daughter issue, closely followed by a decade of looking after my Mum whose Altzheimers was progressively worsening. All rather emotionally draining which didn't help in the least.

It's all past now and except for a deep-seated feeling of being so very, very tired, I'm trying to give body and soul the attention it's needed for so long. "Now and Zen" sits alongside my desk, peacefully reminding me each day to work at keeping in balance. Let's hope that for once in my life, when I find that balance, I won't go and make some silly decision which upsets it all again! LOL I tend to do that.

 "Now and Zen"

Martine Cotter's Travelling Family Blog : https://travellingfamilyblog.com/

The Leaving of La Ville Oger

We're on the move again ... these pics were taken during our last walk down the lane behind our house, on a beautiful sunny day, with nevertheless a bit of a chill in the air. This is the countryside around Lantillac, 8 kms north west of Josselin in Morbihan, Brittany.

We spent the last day, 30 April 2017, in our 400 year old stone tower farmhouse scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming and mopping. We were exhausted and prone to silliness.

The giggles started inside me when I was trundling down the road pushing Alan's wheeled office chair (which wouldn't fit into Milly without being dismantled) and my precious antique bar stool perched upside down on top of it, to be stored for the month at our neighbour's house about 200 metres away. It wasn't a quiet operation with the noise of the wheels on the tar surface, so no sneaking down the road taking my chairs for a walk, for me!

Next chore on the list was to take the recycling to the village bins down the road. Whilst loading the plastic and glass rubbish into Milly, along with Bridie who was being banished with me and our muddy paws so Alan could do a final floor mop, I thought I would connect up the hose and fill our water tanks ready for the road.

Then we were off. Bridie, me … and the trailing garden hose … plus the plastic doo-dah that the hose rolls up onto. Happily bouncing down the driveway and onto the road. I had forgotten I was busy filling the tanks before I left! And to cap it all I was totally unaware of my folly.

Just longer than the length of the hose down the road, I met an oncoming car, another neighbour, so I pulled to the side of the narrow country road to allow her to pass. She didn't pass. She just sat and stared. So I looked in my rear view mirror … and I'm still giggling at the memory of what I saw.

Alan was hurtling out of the driveway, arms flailing in a futile attempt to call me back and stop me, with a look of sheer horror on his face. Alan never runs. He's a no-flap walker. So already I was smiling. Then I noticed this long green snake trailing behind me with the plastic doo-dah on the end, stopping my neighbour from comfortably passing me … and my silly exhausted giggle escaped!

You know that uncontrollable giggle which happens when you're nervous or very tired? Well that was me. I couldn't even tell the story to Maggie, my neighbour, with any sense of intelligence at all, a few minutes later when I arrived at her house to drop off a couple of ladders. She gave up on me … I think she thought I'd finally flipped!

And I'm giggling still, as I write this.

Our first night was spent at the beautiful lakeside in Lanouee, just 10 kms or so down the road from Lantillac.

This will always be my favourite village lake. It's beautiful in all seasons and thoroughly used and appreciated by the folk of Lanouee. As well as the ducks! (None in this pic though)

 Milly the Motorhome still looking clean on the first night on the road.

 

Above and below are the lovely views around Lanouee lake.

We had another good chuckle on the first morning on the road.

We were servicing Milly at the water tanks when a little white car zoomed around the corner and pulled up in the road next to us. And I mean in the road. No pulling off to the side to let others pass or anything. Luckily there were no others.

I was busy persuading Bridie to not go and eat the car's occupant whilst Alan went over to the beckoning man to chat. Next thing, I see the guy jump out of his car and whip around to the back seat from where he produced a cellophaned package of some sort. The conversation between himself and Alan was short, and within seconds he was back in his little car, zooming off again. Alan came back with laughter in his eyes … he was a sock salesman!

A sock salesman. Way out in the country. Maybe he's found it's a good way to snare sitting ducks.

And on to our next experience .......

Horses at Lanouee